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BEDFORD COUNTY, Va. (WRIC/AP) — An imprisoned sex offender has been charged with murder, 40 years after two young sisters vanished from a suburban Maryland mall.

Lloyd Michael Welch Jr. already is serving a lengthy prison term in Delaware.

The 58-year-old has told authorities that he was with 12-year-old Sheila Lyon and her 10-year-old sister Katherine when they were abducted in March 1975, but he denies any role in their deaths. Welch was an 18-year-old carnival worker at the time of the sisters’ disappearance.

The girls have never been found.

For more than year, authorities have been searching for the sisters’ remains on a mountain in Bedford County near the home of one of Welch’s relatives. Welch’s uncle, Richard Welch, was named a second “person of interest” in the case, but authorities have not announced any charges against him.

This morning, police plan on holding another news conference in regards to the case at noon.